The collections of Vendsyssel Kunstmuseum

Vendsyssel Museum of Art is one of the few art museums where you can witness a close connections between the work of the artists and the characterful landscape outside the museum. Landscape art inspired by the the open sky, the wide view with fields, low wind-swept windbreakers and somewhere in the horizon the always present North Sea. Particularly the painters Svend Engelund (1908-2007) and Johannes Hofmeister (1914-90) are influenced by the force of Vendsyssel (the part of North Jutland north of the fiord Limfjorden) and the North Sea in their paintings. Engelund by the flat and stringent landscape that he has time and time again portrayed and supplied with a certain colour poetry. And Hofmeister by the quite near, the few but characterful hills just outside the home and the frugal dunes in the coastal landscape.

Also younger artists such as Poul Winther (born 1939) and Poul Anker Bech (1942-2009) are strongly connected to the landscape, however expressing it very differently in their paintings.

Besides main works by the above-mentioned artists the museum's collections contains works by Agnete Bjerre (born 1924), Anna Maria Lütken (1916-2001), Poul Ekelund (1921-76), Arne L. Hansen (1921-2009), Søren Elgaard (born 1951), Emil Gregersen (1921-93), Frede Christoffersen (1919-87) and others. They are all associated with the region, as laid down in the museum regulations: To concentrate on modern Danish art associated with Northern Jutland.

The museum's collections also include sculpture, graphics and handicraft. Erland Knudssøn Madsen (born 1942) and Kurt Tegtmeier (born 1950) are strongly represented among Vendsyssel Museum of Art's sculptors.

The graphic collection originates from I. Chr. Sørensen's lithographic workshop in Hjørring 1973-83, since 1983 Det Grafiske Værksted (The Graphic Workshop) in Hjørring. Among others the graphics artist Poul Skov Sørensen (born 1951) is represented with a large collection. A number of Scandinavian artists make use of the workshop and are therefore representered, among others the Swedish artist Roj Friberg (born 1934).

In Northern Jutland we have a handful of significant craftsmen and gradually the museum has established a brilliant collection of their works. They are the textile artists Berit Hjelholt (1920-2016) and Jenny Hansen (born 1951), the silver and goldsmiths Bent Exner (1932-2006), Hanne Behrens (born 1950 ) and Henrik Bløndal Bengtsson (born 1960) as well as the ceramic artist Tove Anderberg (born 1942). The museum has a considerable collection of the last-mentioned.